In present day scenario, rapid increase in mobile subscriber base and recent emergence of applications such as MMOG (multimedia online gaming), mobile TV, web 2.0, high definition video streaming, live meeting etc., have resulted in large scale increase of mobile data usage. This motivated 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) to work on the standardization and development of the 3G Long-Term Evolution (LTE). LTE is an end to end broadband IP network that aims to provide high sector capacity, scalability, improve end-user throughputs, and reduce user plane latency and bringing significantly improved user experience with full mobility. The LTE architecture comprises of an evolved radio access network (EUTRAN) and an evolved packet core (EPC). 3GPP has listed a set of requirements that the LTE architecture should fulfill, including downlink and uplink peak data rates of 100 Mbits/s and 50 Mbits/s, respectively and enhanced multimedia broadcast multicast service (EMBMS) through paired and unpaired spectrum arrangements.
The increasing consumption of data by mobile device users running several high data rate applications with stringent QoS (Quality of Service) requirements has put forth lot of challenges on the cellular network operators. Some of the challenges that the operators shall be facing are summarized below:                1. Significant data traffic congestion at gateways and also in the base stations leading to increased queuing delays and packet drops finally degrades the QoS (quality of service).        2. High wear and tear of the hardware elements of the gateways and base stations causing early outage and hence degrades the QoS        3. High power consumptions and heat dissipation at the gateways and base stations leading to unnecessary system breakdowns which leads to degradation of the QoS.Operators are attempting to address the above stated degradation of QOS challenges by upgrading their wide area networks (WANs) and deploying small cells. However in some scenarios these measures may not be sufficient.        
In view of the above drawbacks, there is a need for a mechanism that reduces the load on the base stations and the gateways and optimizes the network (base stations and the gateways) performance (increased user throughput and decreased data latency) and resource utilization.